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Freezing Your Way Thin

Did you hear the rumor that Michael Phelps would consume up to 10,000 calories a day when he was training?

This at first glance sounds like a horrendously high amount of calories to be taking in for just one day even though he may be training for hours.

But the real reason he was consuming thousands more calories than the typical man is to fuel his internal body furnace.

Swimming pools are typically pretty cold. And the one thing about our body is it likes to stay in homeostasis as often as possible.

So after you jump into a cold swimming pool your body temperature is immediately going to start to go down. And this is the time when your body starts to burn off fat to keep warm.

A new study in Cell Metabolism by the researchers at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research found when they lowered the temperature in the environment people were working out in they actually began to convert their white fat into brown fat.

We’re all born with brown fat which is quickly burned off to keep our little bodies warm. Up to a few years ago, I remember researching this back then, researchers believed we lost all brown fat as we got older.

But in this new study they found the opposite was true. Those who were in better shape actually had more brown fat than the average person.

This is great news because if you’re willing to tolerate a little bit of cold you’ll also be able to burn off more fat.

Most people don’t like being cold, but whenever I hear somebody say, “burrrrr” I’ll usually respond sarcastically that they’ll burn more calories when they’re cold and now I can confirm through research it’s validity.

So don’t be afraid to get a workout in the cold even though you’ll be getting outside your comfort zone. You don’t have to start taking ice baths but embracing the cold instead of bundling up will help you burn more fat.